Bob Kap

Bob Kap (June 10, 1923 – March 14, 2010), also known as Robert Kapoustin and Božidar or Bojidar Nikolaiovich Kapušto, was a Yugoslav-Canadian association football (soccer) and American football coach who was a pioneer in introducing "soccer-style" kicking to the gridiron game.

Soccer

Born in present-day North Macedonia while it was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Kap obtained a law degree at the University of Belgrade and played professional football in Europe before moving to Toronto after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. In North America, he worked as writer-editor for the magazine Soccer Illustrated and published the North America and World Soccer News. He is also described as having coached in Montreal, Quebec. and, more dubiously, that he had played for English club Manchester United. and involving 45 games in 26 countries. Kap kept a journal of the trip which included Saigon during the Vietnam War.

After the team's return to the United States, they made a pre-season trip to Costa Rica and Honduras, He was not known to have coached professionally again.

American football

Kap is credited with recommending the Austrian footballer Toni Fritsch to the National Football League where Fritsch became a successful placekicker. In 1973, he worked as a kicking coach for the Houston Oilers. Overall, Kap claimed to have placed nine European kickers in the NFL.

In 1974, Kap was involved in plans for six European cities to play in the Intercontinental Football League under American football rules. The competition did not take place but is cited as having helped set the stage for the eventual NFL Europe.

In 1978, Kap fronted a bid to bring Argentine World Cup star Ricky Villa to the United States, but Villa moved to Tottenham Hotspur in England along international teammate Ossie Ardiles instead. Michael continued to live in BC before being arrested in Germany in 1996 and extradited to Bulgaria to spend time in prison for fraud. He maintained his innocence and the Dallas sports columnist Gene Wilson wrote a book on his situation before the Canadian government successfully pushed for his release in 2008.